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The Ted Williams thing
doubledragon
Posts: 23,255 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
Ted Williams had many nicknames- The Kid, The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame, but he really only wanted one nickname. He wanted to be known as "the greatest hitter who ever lived". In your opinion, did he earn that nickname? If your answer is no, then who deserves to be called by that nickname? Who is the greatest hitter who ever lived?
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I always liked how Ted Williams went about hitting. He was scientific about it, and had a beautiful swing.
Let's just have a look at Babe Ruth's swing.
Barry Bonds.
Ken Griffey Jr. had a beautiful swing.
Mickey Mantle.
Hank Aaron.
Yeah, this thread is slammin! There's dingers being hit left and right!
Willie Mays, feel the magic!!
Stan Musial.
Let's throw Jose Canseco in here, just for the heck of it!
Pete Rose.
Ty Cobb.
WARNING : The swings featured above are strictly for viewing pleasure, they don't determine who was the greatest hitter that ever lived.
Awesome stuff Double D! Teddy was one of the greatest hitters ever!
Thanks perk! Ted is my favorite hitter of all time, and in my opinion he is the greatest hitter that ever lived. He broke hitting down to a science!
The best two Yankees ever were The Babe and Lou Gehrig. But I believe the greatest two hitters in history were Bonds and Ted Williams. My opinion
Both Williams and Joe Dimaggio lost prime years due to the war.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
Bonds is a joke.
Ruth is #1, but if you want to look at the modern era only, it's Williams.
Ted himself, from his autobio, "My Turn At Bat": "A man has to have goals - for a day, for a lifetime - and that was mine, to have people say, 'There goes Ted Williams, the greatest hitter who ever lived."
Williams is one of the two candidates for the title, with the other being Ruth. Bonds, before he started cheating, was on the downside of his career and barring something really bizarre happening was on pace to have a career somewhere in the range of Frank Robinson to Hank Aaron (but with fewer home runs than Robinson). Great, but not in the greatest ever conversation.
Whether you consider Ruth or Williams better than the other will depend - entirely - on how much you imagine the game changed in the five years that separate their careers. And you have to imagine that it changed quite a bit in those five years to get Williams on top of Ruth. I don't think it changed much at all, and I don't think much of the case that Williams was better; but there is a case, and anyone with even the possibility of being declared better than Ruth is truly great.
Williams said that the slider was a big change for hitters. Instead of looking for either a fastball or curve, you had to respect the third pitch.
Barry Bonds is a joke. This is a perfect example of why I prefer a baseball fan over a statistic fan.
Anything Barry did after 1999 (and maybe even 1991) should be removed from the records.
Source: Sporting News
Ted Williams went on active duty in November 1942. He spent the entire 1943 season in flight training, advanced flight training, and Officer Candidates School. And on May 2, 1944, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United State Marine Corps. After two-plus years of training he was in Pearl Harbor awaiting orders in 1945 and on Sept. 2, 1945, World War II ended. In all, Williams missed out on three seasons due to World War II. His age-24, 25 and 26 seasons.
Bonds, IMO doesn't belong in the thread. As a cheater, he has toasted his imagine and gets zip from me.
As for Williams, it can only be assumed the numbers he would have put up in those prime years he lost to military service. Certainly a fair guess would be that they would have been substantial. Without the inclusion of these precious years lost, a further realistic analysis can't be made. I'd give the nod to Williams. Having seen him play in Fenway Park, my bias is obvious, but for someone to have sacrificed that time, and the other no sacrifice, the choice is obvious to me.
To the Bonds haters, there are people who took steroids and already in the hall. His records arn't going away and he keeps getting closer to getting elected. Plenty of football players who used in the hall as well.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
Ted has my vote as the best, many others vying for 2nd
Yup, just the same when Aaron broke Ruth's record. Some people refused to accept.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
sorry when I think of ted williams all I can picture is the whole frozen head with a tuna can stuck to it.
Not at all the same. Not even close.
It doesn't have anything to do with being a "hater" either (BTW that's a stupid label to put on people who have a differing opinion), it has to do with him not actually being deserving of both the records or the HOF.
There might be a couple of guys in the HOF that were cheaters, but not to the extent that Bonds broke the rules.> @mrvgex said:
You sir sound like both a racist and an "ageist". Maybe you could stop stereotyping people and just accept the fact that they have a differing opinion.
Banzai, if Bonds broke the rules, his records would not be valid.
We dont know who all did steroids and who didnt. Same with any sport. So we need to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
Barry Bonds admits using steroids during his baseball career, his lawyer told a jury Tuesday.
That was from 2011
Terry Bradshaw was AMAZING!!
Ignore list -Basebal21
So what! He used steroids and admitted to it. Who cares WHEN he admitted to it?
You and stan need to get a room.
He was a true gentleman. I was lucky enough to have met him on several occasions. Always a class act.
The only fantasies I have that are Killebrew related would involve collecting his baseball cards.
What is that bird you have for your icon.....a dodo?
I think Ted Williams had the prettiest swing, no wasted motion, short and sweet. That being said, I think the BAMBINO was the best hitter to ever play the game. He didn't look the part, and didn't play in the same era, but he was just such a dominant player.
For the Barry Bonds fans, his achievements are exceptional. But kindly explain to me how someone gets that much bigger and stronger as they pass their prime playing years. There is only one answer. You're correct in that you can't take away the numbers he put up, but it's not on the same level playing field as the others and you must take that into account.
https://classic.esquire.com/article/1986/6/1/what-do-you-think-of-ted-williams-now
"The vaccines work,” Trump said, adding that the people who “get very sick and go to the hospital” are unvaccinated.
“Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get it, it’s a very minor form,” Trump continued. “People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.”
Do your part, America 💉😷
I suggest you dump the politics crap before you disappear!
the Ruth vs. Williams is an interesting comparison and another example of how a player's performance is influenced by where he plays the majority of his games.
Williams and Ruth both batted left and played at Fenway Park, for Ruth only a few years and while he was primarily pitching and playing in less games. still, the stats are clear, he wasn't nearly the hitter he became at Yankee Stadium. looking at the first six years of each player's career, both played at Fenway, what is clear to me is that Williams had it going from the start and Ruth needed to get away from the mound while also needing to settle in as a hitter. the big change happened when the Babe moved to NY with that short porch. for the Splendid Splinter, he started strong, missed three War Years and returned without missing a beat, all at Fenway.
once each was at a permanent home, Williams for a career at Fenway and the Babe to finish at Yankee Stadium, they were both pretty consistent.
stats get distorted by the Stadiums. Ruth's HR total probably would have been less everywhere else and I think his BA would have suffered as well. I imagine the right fielders playing close to that wall and leaving a lot of space in front where plenty of singles fell. really, though, they had no choice because they were playing where the ball was likely to be hit, at the wall!! also, I would imagine he had quite a few extra bases out by the monuments in center.
Williams, hitting in the same park every year for half his games where the dimensions were a bit more challenging, had less HR's. more of his average came off balls that stayed in the park. at that, both players had pretty close to the same number of hits in their careers, almost identical over a season.
I think Ruth had more sheer power, without a doubt, but I think Williams had better bat control. both had an amazing ability to get the "meat" of the bat on the ball. the game today is much different, I wish I could have seen it played around the time of WW2. I think that's where a time machine could take me.
In one of my books on Ted Williams, the fences were brought in a bit one year to "help" him hit HR and he actually hit less.
It is a fact that Yankee Stadium had a "short porch" in right field. It is also a fact that Ruth hit 20 FEWER homers at home than he did on the road. Conclusion: the short porch at Yankee Stadium had very little, if anything at all, to do with Ruth's HR totals. My guess is that Ruth's average HR traveled 400 feet or so and it made virtually no difference to him which stadium he was in.
I've got Ruth at 1 and Williams at 2 on my all time greatest hitter list.
But for those who have Williams at 1, it doesn't bother me. Ted was one helluva ballplayer that's for sure.
Williams gets my vote. He had the batting average and the power. In addition he lost five prime years out of his career because of the wars. Getting drafted to go to Korea was totally unfair in my opinion. If he had been able to play for those years, baring injury, he would have added at least 150 home runs to his lifetime total, which would have placed him at 675 or so. He also played half of his games in Fenway Park, which has a very deep right field, even with the “Williams porch” (the bullpen that was added to it) to shorten it.
Ruth played in the old Yankee Stadium which had a much shorter right field. He also played in the old Polo Grounds for a brief time when he first went to the Yankees. The horseshoe shaped stadium had a joke of a right (and left) field fence.
Williams was born hitter, and he augmented that with taking a scientific approach to the game.
The five years lost to two wars cut a huge hole in Williams career and I won't try to argue that there's a single right way to fill it in. I have Ruth at #1, but there are ways to fill in that hole that could get Williams to #1. So, I'm not really going to try to get you to change your answer, just to make sure you have all the facts.
Fenway, contrary to what I think you're implying, was an enormous benefit to Williams, as it has been to everyone who ever played there. You're right that it cut down his HR; he hit 25 fewer HR at home (248) than on the road (273), about a 10% difference. But that's where the negative effects of Fenway end; Williams hit more than 50% (wow!) more doubles at home than on the road (319 vs. 206), and his batting average jumped 33 points at home (.361 vs. .328) (his OBP and slugging jumped about the same).
Comparing Ruth to Williams has so many variables that it's tough enough as it is. That Fenway helped Williams, and helped him a lot, isn't a variable, though, it's just a fact, and it's too important a fact to gloss over. If we pretend that playing in Fenway doesn't matter, then I agree that Williams was a better hitter than Ruth; that is, the Fenway factor all by itself is enough to change the result of the comparison.